Allies 'to demand nuclear-free North Korea'
Japan, the United States and South Korea will demand that North Korea scrap all its nuclear facilities when diplomats next meet to try to resolve the year-old crisis over its moves to develop nuclear weapons, it was reported today.
The report by Japan’s Yomiuri newspaper suggested the three allies had no plans to restart a recently-suspended project to build a pair of nuclear reactors to generate badly-needed electricity for the impoverished communist state.
Citing unnamed Japanese government sources, the newspaper said senior officials from the three nations had agreed North Korea should not be allowed to “operate nuclear facilities even for power generation or other civilian purposes” as long as Kim Jong Il remained the country’s leader because of the possibility they could be used to develop weapons covertly.
The allies will demand that North Korea agree to “dispose of” all its nuclear facilities at the next round of six-nation talks to end the standoff, the report said.
Any future energy assistance will be limited to providing help with the construction of non-nuclear thermal power plants, the newspaper said, adding that the policy had been decided at a series of meetings in December.
The report came a day after news that North Korea had invited a delegation of US nuclear experts to visit its main nuclear complex next week. The visit would be the first by outsiders to the site since United Nations monitors were expelled at the end of 2002.
In November an international consortium led by the United States, Japan, South Korea and the European Union announced it was halting work on a pair of light-water reactors under construction in North Korea as part of a 1994 deal under which North Korea agreed not to develop nuclear weapons.
The consortium agreed to a one-year suspension of the £3 billion project, although a US State Department spokesman said at the time it had “no future” in Washington’s view.
Phone calls seeking comment on the report from Japan’s Foreign Ministry were unanswered today, the last day of a week of New Year’s holidays.
